Monday, April 11, 2011

On petards, and hoisting

It was only a matter of time, really, before some other country responded to Washington's weaponization of human rights.

Yesterday, China issued its report on the "Human Rights Record of the United States in 2010" (full text in English). Some highlights:

"The United States reports the world's highest incidence of violent crimes, and its people's lives, properties and personal security are not duly protected.

... the violation of citizens' civil and political rights by the government is severe.

Wrongful conviction occurred quite often...

While advocating Internet freedom, the US in fact imposes fairly strict restriction on cyberspace.

...Americans' economic, social and cultural rights protection is going from bad to worse.

Racial discrimination, deep-seated in the United States, has permeated every aspect of social life.

Gender discrimination against women widely exists...

The United States has a notorious record of international human rights violations.

We hereby advise the US government to take concrete actions to improve its own human rights conditions, check and rectify its acts in the human rights field, and stop the hegemonistic deeds of using human rights issues to interfere in other countries' internal affairs."

Note that most of the data cited in the paper comes from the U.S. media. Ouch.

1 comment:

The US also has more people in prison per capita and absolutely, than either the People's Republic of China or the Russian Federation.

Angela Davis, who has studied the matter and who posits a connection between very profitable privatized prison contracting and the labor often contracted out by these operations, has dubbed it "the prison industrial complex."